Re: Very cheap molded enclosures?

> Thanks! That seem to be a good place to get started. I like their
> flame logo on the home page. $2.50 a pop would blow the budget, even
> half that would. But maybe this can be done somewhere on an automated
> press, especially since precision isn't such a big concern for this
> job.

Your welcome. I know $2.50 is too much for you, but that was for 50
pieces and punching isn't their real business, diemaking is. I let them
do the punching for the convenience. A local rubber company does
punching for us on other stuff for about 1/2 that, on much larger
gaskets, so I'm sure you could get it well under $1 with much less than
your 10K per year (make the die big enough to do 4-8 lids at a time, for
starters, whatever the press will stand). Now that I have the die I'm
going to our local company for the next run. We also do some boxes with
LED displays where the LEDs are on a PC board behind a hole in a metal
box, with a stick on label on the outside. The label has solid color
regions, all the lettering, and clear windows over the LEDs. We punch
holes for switches to stick through. Sounds great, but, in 100's for a
4"x8" label they are several dollars each which kills your budget. We
are okay with it because we want the rugged box and the quantity is so
low the cost would be about the same no matter how we made them.
Anyway, just a long-winded way of saying that a label is also going to
be expensive. Maybe punch a panel and then silk-screen it? That is
pretty cheap to do, and easy to set up so long as you only want one
color. I've been reading up on building a vacuum forming machine for
fun - really doesn't seem too hard and it would be neat to form your own
boxes :-). Form the box, punch the lid from ***, silkscreen it, and
glue it on since you don't plan on repairs anyway. Hire some cheap
labor and do them yourself until the volume takes off and you can afford
to go offshore. Then start offering semi-custom boxes for other people
who have the same needs as you do now :-).

--
Regards,
Carl Ijames carl.ijames at verizon.net


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